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"Our focus very much now is returning to normality and undertaking damage assessments. We've got multi agency teams out there making sure we damage assess. And we can actually issue the return safely notifications."
That's a spokesman from the State Emergency Service, confirming the last of the evacuation orders have now been lifted for northern New South Wales - and residents and business owners can start to return home.
But just where to call home is actually in question for some residents - like this man, Josh.
"As this situation is, this is our homes for all intents and purposes - and we take great care of them and try to do right by the community."
Josh is one of around 40 people currently squatting in houses in the northern New South Wales city of Lismore that were damaged by flooding and are now owned by the state government.
Tyson Middleton and his mother are also among them.
"Well it's changed me and my mum's life a lot. We finally felt safe and called a place home - for now. It's been about a year and a half since we've felt this safe.”
But that's not how Premier Chris Minns sees it.
He says the government has spent $900 million on buybacks of homes in the northern rivers region - and it's not safe for anyone to be in some of those properties in Lismore.
"We bought those houses so as we could keep communities safe so that no-one would live there. So to have squatters move in on the back of that is unacceptable... It's not tolerable to have so many people located in flood-prone land, still in danger, and have SES personnel volunteers have to go and check on those households, check on those communities, to keep them safe."
The Premier says those houses will now be knocked down.
"I made a decision in conjunction with the Reconstruction Authority that we are going to demolish those houses. We are going to make sure those communities are safe. And we can't have an intolerable decision where people are in harm's way when New South Wales taxpayers have spent millions of dollars trying to make the community safer."
Josh has said he's surprised by that announcement.
"Hope to continue to keep up the agreements that we have with the RA (Reconstruction Authority) and police, and negotiations we have with them. So I'm not aware why the Premier has made those statements. He doesn't seem to know what it's like on the ground here and that there are a lot of people who still live and own their own homes in this floodplain."
The conflict has escalated, with both the Premier and Housing Minister Rose Jackson accusing the squatting group of being professional activists - and trying to jump the public housing queue.
Planning Minister Paul Scully also says the squatters have not taken advantage of the options available to them.
"These people are occupying those houses illegally. They have been provided offers of assistance on multiple occasions where they might be eligible. The government remains ready to provide assistance to those who need it. But where there's people who are taking advantage of the fact that other people have had to leave their house and had a buyback because of the danger that area poses, we're not going to tolerate illegal occupation of places."
But Andrew George from the Reclaim Our Recovery tenancy group says that's not true.
"There's been a top down flood recovery since 2022 that has meant a lot of people have been left out of any kind of assistance from the government. People are still in houses that haven't been raised and they were shit-scared in the recent flood scare here. The government boarded up hundreds of houses with no land to move them to, and the timeline is years they're sitting vacant. It makes sense in a housing crisis that people live in these houses, and this street - Pine Street - has demonstrated that people can live here safely."
The Premier has confirmed officials were already in the process of evicting the squatters before the latest flood emergency developed.
"Unbeknownst to me, in all candour, I wasn't aware that we were currently in court trying to execute eviction notices on some members of those communities when Tropical Cyclone Alfred emerged in the last week."
But the squatters themselves say they have nowhere else to go.
Tyson Middleton has told SBS there are few options in the region for families like his, who had escaped a domestic violence situation.
"Being homeless is not fun. It's scary. Like, having nowhere else to go and being in the caravan or car, it's not great. It drains your mental health a lot."
The Premier's announcement has highlighted what advocates and locals say is an already existing problem.
Sally Latter from the Northern Rivers Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service has previously stated housing costs are high in the region compared to the average cost of housing in New South Wales, and at the same time household income in the region is below average.
Cost pressures have meant the area was already home to the state's highest number of rough-sleepers before Tropical Cyclone Alfred made its presence felt, leaving some residents with few options amid nationwide housing affordability issues.
The Premier says he understands how tough it is - but maintains these squatters have no right to be where they are.
"It's absolutely necessary that we do it. We're not trying to exacerbate the housing issues in the northern rivers. Indeed we've spent millions and millions of dollars on homelessness services in the northern rivers as well as emergency accommodation and social housing as part of the New South Wales government's budget. But the housing problems are not going to be solved by moving people into flood prone land. We have to draw a line in the sand here."
